8 – 25 June 2017
about the exhibition
Viewing this collection of works by internationally renowned artist Bruno Leti, we can begin to grasp the depth of his investigations into monotypes across his prolific career. The formality of printmaking itself is counteracted by the painterly qualities inherent in the monotype process, where a single impression is taken from a uniquely worked plate. As Bruno acknowledges, “I don’t consider myself a printmaker…but a painter who makes prints.” There is an immediacy in the process of adding and removing ink or paint on a plate that captures traces of the artist’s movement and this is particularly evident in his larger works where sweeping gesturesare carried across the expansive surface, often across multiple plates. The abstracted forms with their evocative colouration illustrate both Bruno’s physical surrounds and his internal psychological landscape. Bruno has stated that, “There are no ‘rules’ in making a monotype…The spontaneous and expressive ‘moment’ allows intuition to surface and surprise. There develops a kind of synthesis between thinking and doing.” Indeed, he has kept this art form at the core of his practice for over forty years, forming a truly unique and striking visual language.
Bruno Leti was born in Italy and immigrated to Australia with his family as a child in 1952. Taking art history studies at the University of Melbourne as well as a course at the Melbourne Teachers’ College, Bruno was primed for a career which would combineteaching, art practice and workshops. In the late 1970s, he undertook a number of commissions for the Print Council of Australia then went on to study under Tate Adams at RMIT, prior to a residency at Grafica Uno in Milan in 1982. In 2001, he was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (New York) and, in 2006, the State Library of Victoria Creative Fellowship. In 2016, Bruno was winner of the Swan Hill Print and Drawing Acquisitive Awardand a finalist in the Paul Guest Prize.Bruno’s work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and all state galleries, as well as Parliament House, Artbank, BHP, Phillip Morris, Westpac, The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington and the BibliotecaComunalein Milan amongst many others.
